Normally I consider myself to have decent impluse control, i tend to think things through and make informed choices or at least understand what risks i'm taking. Not so last weekend!

I've read Catherine Halley's blog "Scrappy Girl Decorates" for over a year now and think she is stylish, witty, self-deprecating and an all around decent girl. However, she and i tend to dream more about projects than actually start and finish them. So imagine my shock when i see she has ripped up her kitchen floor without even really debating about it first! Me too, Me too!! I want to make apartment progress too!!!!

Within literally 30 seconds I am on all fours in my kitchen prying up my dreaded vinyl flooring, forgetting that.....

1. I do not own my own apartment, i rent a little rent-stabilized 1.5 bedroom in williamsburg.2. I have no idea what could be lurking under my tile. cement, more tile, plywood?3. I have not enough money to even consider actually replacing my floor with something that could look nicer.4. It is 10:30pm on a monday night. I am not endearing myself to my new downstairs neighbors with this late night crow-bar action.As you can see, my tiles were already damaged i swear, Mr. Slumlord, i mean, Landloard. They were all loose and bubbling.And cracking.

and yes, i took these pictures not to have good "before" floor shots but as blackmail photos, in case my deposit is held hostage if i ever move.....So i've done some hard manual labor before, but this took the cake. Those are sheets of metal that were nailed down with 3" nails. Not easy for a girl to pry up one after another for hours!

What a mess, but look at my amazing 100+ year old wood floor. It isn't even badly damaged.

This is what i'm working with now. I've since scraped and sanded and sanded and sanded. and primed and painted. still more painting to go.

I decided to paint a ivory and black diamond checkerboard. A cheeky classic kitchen floor. I've painted the ivory diamonds and 1/2 the blacks. Still a few more days left to go and then i'll post the second half of the project pictures.

I'm inspired by your intrepid motivation.Your willingness to risk the unknown...Surprise, What was incognito under that gross lifting linoleum! You didn't give up when the task become more challenging then what you had imagined.

Woohoo! What victory. I am so impressed & I can't wait to see the end results. I want to visit in May, I hope you are around- I told Ginny it's a Ginny & Haylie visit- and of course you & Chelsea are included too. We should plan an evening of fun in your beautiful apt. & then we can talk wedding talk & rummage through all of your treasures, which will most likely be inspiration for the wedding itself. ahhhhh!! what do you think?

Looking forward to more photo's and seeing your fabulous finished work of art!

I keep looking at my kitchen floor and saying to myself... "If Amy can do it, maybe, just maybe, I can too". So instead I painted the inside of my kitchen cabinets like you did 4 years ago at the Pelham apt. An idea of yours that took a long time to germanate. Let's hope it doesn't take me 4 years to brave a trasnsformation of my kitchen floor.

Wow. I am so impressed and jealous. I live in a very new building that has plywood beneath the awful (truly) carpet - but our landlord expressly forbade us from tearing up the carpet and finishing the plywood, which was our dream when we moved in. By the way, I just fell in love with you a little bit today. :)